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Mysterious Island; Captain Harding's FABULOUS Adventures
Topic Started: Jan 19 2009, 09:36 PM (4,523 Views)
Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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Vornoff
Jan 26 2009, 08:03 AM
I just ordered mine from Rodney, along with The Shadow & Mysterious Doctor Satan, both of which I've been wanting to see for a long time.
I hope yopu enjoy these as much as I did. They're both good, yet I favor The Mysterious Doctor Satan over The Shadow slightly.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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shelbyvinje
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rodney
Jan 29 2009, 10:20 AM
I gotta say, I kind of like seeing this thread take a turn for the praise of my company! If it weren't for my fellow balconeers, January would've been a very slow month (as they've all been lately). I really appreciate it, and hope to continue to do you right with good stuff at fair prices.
Rodney knows I have purchased almost every serial from him and when an upgrade became available he's always been willing to upgrade. Best copy of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND came from Rodney. Avoid Olden DVD in Indiana, it's awful and grainy.

Rodney has a superb direct from 16mm prints of HEROES OF THE WEST, THE INDIANS ARE COMING and his print of THE ADVENTURES OF REX AND RINTY is the best print I've ever seen for any Mascot serial ever.
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panzer the great & terrible
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When, Mr. G., are you getting around to Chapter Two of this masterpiece? The suspense is killing us.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Laughing Gravy
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panzer the great & terrible
Feb 5 2009, 09:58 AM
When, Mr. G., are you getting around to Chapter Two of this masterpiece? The suspense is killing us.
Mr. Panzer, I refer you to my post in this thread of Jan 21 2009, 08:42 AM. Post #12 in this thread to be specific.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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I am covered with rue.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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The Batman
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Go soak your head - that'll stain

Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman!
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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panzer the great & terrible
Feb 5 2009, 09:58 AM
When, Mr. G., are you getting around to Chapter Two of this masterpiece? The suspense is killing us.
Yeah, what he said.
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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Laughing Gravy
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It will be posted... ummmm... this week! Yay!
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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MYSTERIOUS ISLAND Captain Harding's Fabulous Adventures

Once again, we’re screening a thrill-packed, high-octane, suspense-soaked cliffhanger serial in the Balcony, and this time, it doesn’t have a fat Boy Scout spending 12 weeks searching for the Lost Baby Ruth Fountain of Genghis Khan, or whatever th’ hell those rotten kids were looking for in our last serial. No, this time it has fabulous adventures, as demonstrated by the serial’s full title (as you’ll recall, Columbia in this period gave its serials lengthy subtitles, including The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd: King of Pirates, Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere, and Superman: Cheezy Cartoon Whenever Kirk Alyn Flies). Yes, it’s Mysterious Island: Captain Harding’s Fabulous Adventures, originally released in the summer of 1951 but still just as fabulous now as it was then, rest assured.

So this time, let’s kick off the festivities with “Lost in Space”, the first… What th’… “Lost in Space”?!? Cool! I call dibs on Marta Kristen.

Chapter 1: “Lost in Space!”

March, 1865. The Yankees are running around hither and yon on “the fields and highways of Virginia,” the narrator solemnly tells us, including Captain Cyrus Harding’s crack crew of engineers. When Cap’n Harding and a couple of his men lead a little scouting expedition into the Southern California... sorry, Central Virginian hills, they’re spotted by a couple of Johnny Rebs in a hot-air balloon. “Those Yankees are UP to something,” one of the Rebel scouts intones, sounding a lot like Vin Scully noting bullpen activity in a World Series broadcast. He gets word to his men below by putting a note in a tube and dropping it, just like a cash deposit at Costco. Within seconds, Cap’n Harding and his men are surrounded (by 2 or 3 guys) and quickly throw down their arms and surrender. Hmpfh. Engineers!

The Confederates decide that Cap’n Harding seems like an alright Joe, so they let him have the run of Richmond and even find him a swell house to live in (it actually less resembles Tara than it does Beaver Cleaver’s house). At first, the cranky old man who lives there don’t want no Yankee on his property, but when his li’l dog takes a shine to Cap’n Harding, well, that’s okay then. (“Yankee or not, you’re the first stranger Top ever cottoned to!”)

A week later, Cap’n Harding, who has now all but been elected Mayor of Richmond, is sitting in the park reading his morning paper when he’s approached by a Yankee spy, a N.Y. reporter who talks as if he’s from Idaho. A trio of Confederates (who should be off fighting Grant or Sherman or somebody like that, methinks) decide to beat the crap out of the two suspicious Yankees, but the energetic fisticuffs are interrupted by a very polite Confederate Captain (“Ah trust you don’t think those renegades represent ALL of us”).

That night, who sneaks into the Cleaver mansion to visit the Cap’n but good ol’ Ned, a runaway slave and right good feller; seems he’s been lookin’ for his ol’ friend the Cap’n, and a few plugs o’ chaw planted in the right cheeks netted him the info he needed to find him. Along with that reporter guy and a few of Harding’s men, they’re all going to steal that Confederate balloon, see, and escape north, and they’d better do it but quick, ’cause there’s a hurricane a-brewin’.

My goodness, things happen fast in this serial. Within seconds again, every Rebel within 10 miles has done tossed down his arms and allowed Harding and his men to successfully complete the world’s first balloonjacking. They weren’t quite quick enough, alas, to outfloat that hurricane, and they spend the next five days and nights blowin’ every which way. “Only the two most rugged retained consciousness,” that breathless narrator tells us. Eventually the storm abates but they’re all gonna die ‘cause the balloon is losing height and they’ve got no more ballast to throw out (well, there’s the dog, which somehow got into the balloon, and Ned, and I’m frankly not certain which one they’d throw out first but they’d get to both of ‘em, I reckon) but the Cap’n does the heroic thing and leaps out of the balloon to his sure doom. After all, death is the most fabulous adventure of them all, no?

Some hours later (or maybe instantly, hard to tell in this serial) the men are recuperating on an island somewhere, lamenting the loss of the good Cap’n (Ned looks positively miserable; he appears ready to burst into tears. And let me say right now how refreshing it is that there’s actually an African-American in a serial that isn’t a servant and doesn’t shuffle around, bug out his eyes, and say things like, “Lordy, ah ain’t a-getting’ in no b’loon, Cap’n Hahdin’, a-cause dem Rebs might be waitin’ in de foxhole wif peashooters!”). Unbeknownst to the motley crew, however, the Cap’n is just fine, but unconscious – he’s being carried to safety by a guy with a Cap’n Video Ranger Officially Licensed Space Helmet™ on his head. Not only that, but the Space Helmet guy can turn invisible, too. Jeez, did we fall asleep and DREAM all this stuff? What’s next, a pirate ship with Gene Roth as a chubby buccaneer? *giggles*

Suddenly on the horizon appears a pirate ship with Gene Roth as a chubby buccaneer. No, no, really. And then a flying saucer from outer space lands, and a gorgeous woman in a miniskirt gets out, followed by two guys with costumes from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe and masks from The Spider’s Web. I… ummm…. Did I mention this is a Sam Katzman serial? That explains a lot. Either that, or Columbia was producing four serials at once – a Civil War western, a pirate adventure, an outer space story, and a sequel to Captain Video – and decided to save money by just having the editors juxtapose the stories. In a blender.

Our brave Union forces watch the spacecraft hurtle over the volcano, and one of them says inquisitively, “It looks like some strange craft from some other planet. I’d like to seek its landing place out – at some future time.” One wonders what language this script was translated into English from, particularly when the beautiful space ship lady says to her men, “I have arrived safely on Earth. We will now go to my former workshop.”

At that exact second, or maybe a year later, the Union guys run into a group of natives who are dressed in black body suits with bright short pants; they look for all the world like a tribe of Mickey Mouses, and they wear knit caps with what appear to be a Nike “swoosh” on each one and they carry giant spears that look like lightning bolts and gosh, this is just the best serial EVER. Right up until that volcano we mentioned a few paragraphs ago blows up and buries all of our heroes under tons of molten rock. Ouch.

Don't fail to see "Sinister Savages!", the next peril-packed episode of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND!
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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If you go to our Cliffhanger site or to http://www.inthebalcony.com/ and folow the links or wherever the hell it is we put things around here, you'll find the second chapter of Mysterious Island now up.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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panzer the great & terrible
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Is this a great serial or what?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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Our story so far: Escaping from the most comfortable, friendliest Prisoner of War camp you could ever imagine, our intrepid band of Union Soldiers (including Ned, an escaped slave) find their appropriated Confederate weather balloon blown out to sea, where eventually they land on an island that can only be called… drum roll please… MYSTERIOUS! What is so mysterious about it? Well, for starters, what is with the natives who dress like Mickey Mouse? Howza bout that Flying Thimble from Outer Space, populated by a babe in a miniskirt and two guys in Flash Gordon costumes and Spider masks? Why in the hell is Pirate Gene Roth in this serial? And other mysterious questions like that. Of course, the BIGGEST mystery so far is why, when the volcano is erupting, our heroes flee for cover into a cave – that is UNDER the friggin’ eruption. And these are the guys on the WINNING side in the Civil War?!?

This week, Chapter 2: “Sinister Savages”

As the mountain collapses around our brave Union soldiers, Pirate Cap’n Gene Roth proclaims to his fearless band of buccaneers and privateers, “We’ll return when that volcano has quieted down” and they sail off to pillage, rape, and massacre someplace a little less lively.

Over on another part of the Mysterious Island, the young lady in the miniskirt tells her two Flash Spider cronies, “When we get what we came for, the island people will see a REAL eruption!” And you know what? It sounds even MORE ribald when SHE says it. Eventually, or instantly (hard to say in this serial), she and the boys set up an impressive, fully-loaded laboratory in a secret mountain hideout, and by “fully-loaded” – this being a Sam Katzman serial – we mean of course that the entire cache of equipment consists of two boxes, each with 2 or 3 dials on it, and some sort of a weathervane with a Popsicle stick pointer on it. The prop department whipped up this stuff before lunch, and still had time to play four or five rousing hands of canasta, folks. Although to be fair, one of the boxes DOES light up, and it appears to be a good, strong 75 watter, too. In typical Katzman fashion, the Pretty Lady and her men then spend endless minutes fiddling with the three dials.

Well, taking leave of the lovely lady in the miniskirt (reluctant leave, I assure you), we return to our heroes. As they crawl out from underneath what appears to be 50 or 60 tons of papier-mâché boulders, one of them says, “No bones broken, but I wouldn’t wanna go through THAT again.” They dust themselves off and trudge off camera to go find something to drink, and I have to tell you, I’m about to join them. And say, wouldn’t this serial be a little more realistic if one of these soldiers bitched about his boots, lice, or the lack of coffee and tobacco?

Feeling that we’ve seen enough of the part of the serial that actually has a plot, the director takes us back into the Pretty Lady from Outer Space’s cave, where her light-bulb box has lit up and caused the Popsicle weathervane to spin madly. She sends Spider Flash #1 (or possibly #2; no, no, it’s #1, his left butt cheek is slightly more pronounced than the other Spider Flash’s left butt cheek, apparently the only way you can tell these Space Travelers apart) out to investigate. He goes out, shoots his ray gun at nothing in particular, and bounds back to the lab.

Pretty Lady from Outer Space: “Who was it?”
Spider Flash #1: “I could not see, but they are gone.”
PLfOS (satisfied): “Continue with your work.”

Wow. Wherever she hails from, they’re not very inquisitive, are they?

Those of you who were with us last week may recall that Cap’n Harding, looking for some o’ those Fabulous Adventures the serial’s poster promised, leaped from the balloon and practically drowned, except that a fellow in a Cap’n Video Ranger Officially Licensed Space Helmet™ rescued him and then walked him right through the side of the mountain. Well, now, inside the mountain Helmet Guy wakes up Cap'n Harding, who looks dazed and listless. He should come sit down here in the audience with us; he’d be right at home. Then… nothing happens. He just sits there. Sitting. My guess is that George Plympton asked his neighbor, Samuel Beckett, to help him out this chapter.

Okay, enough of that, exciting as it is. Back to the other guys, who are discussing the guys in black body stockings, Mickey Mouse pants, and Nike swoosh skullcaps, carrying metal lightning bolt spears: “I’ve sailed around the world many times and never seen anything like them before.” I haven’t sailed around the world many times, fellah, but trust me, none of us watching have ever seen anything like this, either.

Back to the cave, where that knobby lighty box and Popsicle dial turny thing are a-lightin’ and a-spinnin’ to beat the band. Pretty Lady grabs a gun and runs outside and hides in the bushes for a while, and then gets bored of that and goes for a walk where the guys can see her. Spotting a gorgeous woman in a gold lamé blouse and black miniskirt, one of the men blurts out to the others, “Did you see it?” I will let you decide what the pronoun antecedent is. She takes a shot at them with her enormous ray gun but misses them.

“Why, it’s only a girl!” Neb notes appreciatively.

“Let’s get out of here before she REALLY gets friendly,” one of the others says, and I waited for the filthy retort one would expect from a grizzled Union soldier, but it never came. Later, reaching a point of safety about 8 feet away, they discuss the fact the Pretty Lady must come from an advanced culture, being in as she’s got a flying thimble and a ray gun and a miniskirt and all. “Advanced far enough!” someone exclaims and they all laugh. Nobody knows why. Just when you think this serial couldn’t be any crazier if a caveman in a leisure suit showed up, a caveman in a leisure suit shows up. He attacks one of the band that has wandered off, but after letting the kid scream in terror for awhile, the others show up and capture Hairy Cave Guy, leading to this breathless dialog:

“Who are you?
“The question is, WHAT are you?
“Do you speak English?”
“If we could get him to talk, he could tell us where WATER is!” (That was from Neb, who is turning out to be the cockeyed optimist of the group.)

Hairy Cave Guy: “Wa-ter.” He points off over the horizon and they all follow him, but eventually he runs off and finds the Mousketribe. He tells their leader, “Misali boolang. Misali! Misali!” They laugh, so it must be some sort of Neanderthal knock-knock joke. They all dash off to find our heroes, who are wandering around lost on what appears to be a golf course. “Mootali!” the head Mouse guy barks. “Hatchula!” Apparently, that can be translated as, “Fan out, men! We’ll sneak up on these idiots from both sides and form a pincers movement!” Because our team, however, is comprised of veteran Union soldiers and crackerjack fighters experienced in guerilla warfare, it takes nearly 90 seconds before they’re all captured and helpless. The kid says, “You’ve been among savages before, Uncle Jack. Tell ‘em we’re just thirsty.” Uncle Jack, showing the skill at native communication he’s learned on his various voyages around the world, clenches his hands together as if to do “Here is the Church, here is the Steeple,” and says, “We friendly. Mean no harm. Thirsty. Want water.” The Head Mouseketeer Guy looks bemused; I guess he didn’t expect to run into Jay Silverheels on the Mysterious Island. He agreeably takes them toward the water hole, but Ned is suspicious. “Stop your worrying!” Uncle Jack says trustingly. “Water’s water and I mean to have some.” Within seconds, they’re all running for their lives from the bloodthirsty band of screaming, spear-chucking natives. They follow Jack right into a dead-end crevice in a boulder. The Chief of the Swoosh Warriors laughs, grabs a handful of powder from his Mickey Mouse pants, tosses it at our brave band of cowering soldiers, and the powder explodes, blowing them all the way back to Fort Sumter. Yikes!

Don't fail to see "Savage Justice", the next peril-packed episode of MYSTERIOUS ISLAND!
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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toddgault
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I noticed on another thread you had mentioned that one of the problems you had with keeping up with the once a week schedule was due to the time it takes to put up the pictures and formatting them in with the text. Because I enjoy your unique take on serials, I would like to offer a humble suggestion. Why not just do your weekly synopsis on the message board and skip updating the serial page. I'm more interested reading your synopsis of the chapters than in viewing the pictures, the synopsis is funnier.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer
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toddgault
Jun 23 2009, 08:50 AM
I noticed on another thread you had mentioned that one of the problems you had with keeping up with the once a week schedule was due to the time it takes to put up the pictures and formatting them in with the text. Because I enjoy your unique take on serials, I would like to offer a humble suggestion. Why not just do your weekly synopsis on the message board and skip updating the serial page. I'm more interested reading your synopsis of the chapters than in viewing the pictures, the synopsis is funnier.
I agree todd. Gravy will be along to answer your question in about .... oh, let's see, it's late June ... how about an answer for X-mas?
It's like Rodney King used to say, "Can't we all get a bong."
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toddgault
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X-Mas could come early.
Todd Gault..........Serial Buff
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